


Low In The Water With Nowhere To Go (The Tiniest Lifeboat With People I Know)

by eruditeprincess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Loneliness, S5 spec, Season Five Speculation, clarke has been p much alone for a while, like it is genuinely slightly sad, series five speculation, that has got to have affected her somehow, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruditeprincess/pseuds/eruditeprincess
Summary: When you're alone for so long, being around people feels like you're about to drown.When you haven't seen these people for 2199 days, being around them feels as if you barely know them any more.A small spec fic about what might happen in terms of emotions because when you have nobody to talk to for a long time, things have got to be difficult when they come down from space and you have years of lost time to consider.Title taken from 'Lifeboat' from Heathers: The Musical





	Low In The Water With Nowhere To Go (The Tiniest Lifeboat With People I Know)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this went dark at points. Obviously I own nothing. I have had a good few months, but Lifeboat just makes me feel things, y'know? The song itself is great and is really good to read with this, as I listened to it non-stop whilst writing this. I hope people enjoy this insofar as they can, and as usual comments and kudos are appreciated. I may integrate this into a small series of unrelated one shots with the same album for inspiration, as the cast recording for Heathers is really good for inspiration for fics for me. As usual, my tumblr is erudite-princess, and I hope everyone had a good start to their 2018, or if not, I hope your 2018 gets better.
> 
> In this fic, the theme of loneliness is explored. I may not have done it justice, and if not I apologise. People experience loneliness differently and it can affect you in so many ways, and quite a bit of my own experience with my own loneliness has been injected into this story. It can feel easier to retreat into yourself, but that often exacerbates your loneliness and what is easy isn't always the right thing. If you experience loneliness as a constant and aren't sure how to deal with it, especially if it affects your daily life, reaching out is generally a positive thing to do, but I can't speak for everyone.
> 
> I hope people enjoy reading this.

There were days when the world seemed overwhelming to her, when she wished that the ground would swallow her up so she didn’t have to deal with the crap being thrown her way. There were days when she wished they had all stayed up on the Ark, with the world order determined by adult officials rather than two kids trying to survive from day to day. There were days when she wished it was just her and Bellamy, leading their army of delinquents against whatever the world decided to throw at them, being trusted to make the best decision for her people, her friends. The years she spent unaccompanied, desperately trying to cope with her loneliness, even when she had Madi for company, seemed the most overwhelming, until they came back down.

 

When they landed and the initial shock of them being alive after 2199 days wore off, she was acutely reminded that they had had so long to get used to each other, and whilst she knew them, she didn’t at the same time, and that hurt her in an almost indescribable way. They got to work trying to excavate the bunker sheltering the rest of humanity quickly, giving her no time to get to know these people she once considered her close friends. She felt herself retreat within herself at points, being an almost outsider to the jokes the seven spacekru (as they called themselves) cracked within their group. Madi had an easier time integrating, even when (what everyone assumed was) the remainder of humanity emerged from the bunker, her innocence and status as the only child on Earth quickly cementing her an armada of protectors from the spacekru and bunker inhabitants. Madi ended up chatting most to Emori and Echo, and eventually spent more time with them than with Clarke, something she wondered if she had made Madi miss for so long. She watched as the people she once helped nurse back to health, or who she ( _and Bellamy_ , her brain always reminded her) rescued from whatever the hellscape of Earth threw at them, chatted about things she had no idea about, leaving her a stranger in their midst. She felt people reaching out to her, trying to include her in conversations, but after they finished with the miniscule topics she could understand and the inane small talk, the conversations always turned back to what happened up in the husk of the Ark, or what happened in the years her people ( _once, a long time ago)_ were buried underground in a bunker. She knew Bellamy saw her drifting away from conversations, or retreating within herself and giving bullshit excuses to leave conversations like _sorry, I need to go and check on my greenhouse_. She wondered if anyone noticed that she did this in every conversation, or that her excuses were always bullshit. She wondered if anyone cared.

 

Her nights were often spent awake, hugging her knees as the people around her slept peacefully. She didn’t catch herself crying most nights, but it was only when she emitted audible sobs that she even cared about the rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks, wetting her legs. She never knew if anyone was awake until he came over to her one night, his warmth enveloping her as he pulled her into a hug. The night he did that, she felt as if a dam inside of her broke, unleashing a torrent of tears. She didn’t know if she cried at night for the lost time she had with her friends or for her loneliness that had set in since their return. His shirt became thick with tears swiftly, the tears running down his arm as she silently sobbed into his shoulder, inhaling his scent all the while. He whispered sweet nothings into her hair, softly reminding her that they were all alive and she wasn’t alone. She wondered if she should have called bullshit on him at that point, a voice within her almost screaming that he didn’t know what she was going through, and she was alone because she didn’t share anything with them any more except a tiny year on the ground. But instead she held her tongue, breathing wetly through her mouth as she struggled to get her breathing back under control. He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and let her sag into his side when the tears finally subsided. She felt him shift a few times in the night, but he never left her side, even as her breathing evened out and she cuddled into the blanket he’d given her. She woke up entwined with him, and wondered if he felt as lonely as she did, an outsider to their own people.

 

She knew she wasn’t in control as soon as she’d imparted all of her knowledge of the new world her friends were coming into. A small spat occurred over who should take leadership, with an election eventually being held and a council being established for Earth, one that she half-heartedly ran for but wasn’t chosen for. Bellamy was chosen, and that left her feeling like she was drifting. Suddenly, it wasn’t her and Bellamy against the world, but Bellamy and the rest of the council. She felt as if she was redundant to the people she once led, having been separate for so long that she no longer was considered a friend by the others. She wondered when she had stopped being considered a friend and became someone they knew, a long time ago. Her brain knew she hadn’t been chosen for the council as she hadn’t cared about her campaign, but a niggling voice in her head whispered to her that _nobody cared enough, nobody knows you any more_ , and she couldn’t help but wonder how truthful that was.

 

She found herself isolating herself from the rest of the group, making half-arsed excuses to stay in medical or go out on solo trips to find whatever the people she once knew needed. He kept offering to help her, insisting that she shouldn’t be going out alone, just in case, but she always shrugged off his concerns, reassuring him that she had lived on the ground longer than anyone else and had been alone for a number of years scavenging for herself. The council kept approving her solo missions, even when he wanted to go with her, and eventually he stopped bugging her about letting him ( _or anyone else, I mean, just someone, y’know, you shouldn’t go alone_ ) go with her, but she felt the weight of his stares as she left camp for the fifth time that week in torrential rain to find some berries that she knew would be useful for the med bay. He was always the first over to her when she returned from one of her scavenging trips, and that day was no exception. Once he had directed Murphy to take the berries she’d gathered over to medical, he pulled her in next to him, leading her away to a room in the corner of their new makeshift camp around Becca’s lab. She felt his touch through her sodden clothes, the warm fingers pressing into her shoulder sending almost electric pulses down her arm. She shrugged off her jacket into his arms when he prompted her to with a gentle pull at the sleeve, and he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, just as he had done the night she had sobbed into his shoulder. She sank into his side, as she had done that night, and she closed her eyes as her breathing sped up, the moment of quiet next to him overwhelming her until she was sobbing in between heaving breaths, her body not accepting oxygen or anything beyond the noise overtaking her brain as all of her thoughts collided. Bellamy didn’t leave her side, she knew that, as she felt him rubbing her back as she dry heaved onto the floor. She knew that he stayed as she clung to him afterwards, breathing in his scent in the way she’d done all those years ago when she emerged from Mount Weather and discovered he was alive. She wondered if he remembered that day as clearly as she did, when they both knew each other and were as thick as thieves. She didn’t want to ask, so she buried her face into his neck and let herself believe that they were back at a point where they knew each other once more.

 

There were days where she wondered what the point of fighting was. What the point of continuing to fight for her people, for their survival, was. She kept fighting, but the fights she kept up against those who tried to threaten her people felt draining. She found Bellamy was looking out for her more, taking time to check on her from the sidelines. She saw the worry knitting his brow when she slunk away from announcements by the council, Abby declaring the latest proclamation made by the council to make their lives on the remainder of the scorched Earth easier to deal with. She knew he followed after her as soon as he was allowed off the makeshift stage with the rest of the council, always finding her in one of her hiding spots. Her life soon stopped being about fighting for her people as the situation on the ground stabilised and the remnants of humanity found each other and set up trading routes, providing their group with new resources. She felt almost obsolete, as her duties were being alleviated. After years of fighting for people, she felt bereft of a purpose. She still assisted in medical, but it was mostly with training up new medics as her mother took on larger leadership duties. There were days when she felt like screaming from the monotony of her day, but she slowly found herself to be actively seeking out Bellamy to talk to. She wasn’t sure if it was to have someone who understood what she was experiencing or because she felt like he would be good to bond with. She kept finding Raven along the way, and the awkward small talk between them, the simple _how you holding up_ and _what project is this_ evolved into full blown conversations as Raven worked in the mechanical lab. She knew Raven would understand the loneliness she felt in the med bay when her apprentices left for the day, as Raven didn’t have the luxury of apprentices, not yet, and instead sat in the mech lab day in, day out, working alone on projects unless Monty stopped by. Bellamy spent evenings with her, trying to fill the silence between them with everything and nothing. She felt as if he would withdraw if she said the wrong thing, implied the wrong thing about his time in space with the rest of the group, so she often stayed quiet, letting his rough timbre fill the empty spaces they found together. She found herself going to dinner with him most nights, sitting with the remainder of the original 100, sometimes reminiscing about the days when it was a bunch of teenagers ( _and Bellamy, always Bellamy_ ) facing the world, sometimes chatting about their lives. She discovered new things about her friends, like the fact that Miller and Monty were together, or that Echo and Harper were best friends and lived together. Madi joined them most nights, enthralled by the stories they told of Bellamy’s attitude when they all first landed ( _whatever the hell we want_ , Bellamy dully intoned one night at dinner, the seriousness present in his face sending the group into peals of laughter as they thought back to the reckless way he once tried to lead the camp). They avoided stories that stung people’s hearts, like the entire topic of Finn and the torture of Mount Weather, focusing on the funnier stories and memories. She found herself being drawn out of her isolation, slowly but surely, as she began to relearn her friends, began to relearn her rhythm with Bellamy.

 

Monty pulled her aside one day to talk to her, and she felt a small warmth at the fact he had sought her out to talk. He talked to her about the years he and the rest of the spacekru spent up on the Ark, the only one of the seven to do so. He drew in a deep breath as he talked about his and Harper’s break up, how it affected the group for a year before both he and Harper could finally say they were getting over it. He exhaled deeply as he turned away, ready to go on his way, but not before softly saying _we all had to face ourselves up there, the people we’d become since leaving Earth, and we all faced loneliness, battling it through the dark_ and she pulled him into a hug, whispering _you’re not alone any more_ in his ear, with him reciprocating in kind.

 

She sought Bellamy out, one night, wandering the corridors until she reached the room he had been assigned, knocking softly. He came to the door quickly, wiping his eyes and smiling when he saw it was her. His eyes were red rimmed and watery, and she pulled him into a hug as tears started leaking from his eyes again. His larger frame seemed to engulf her as she stood in the doorway, arms wrapped around his shoulders. She felt him breathing her in, his nose firmly pressed into the crook between her shoulder and neck. She reached up to tug on his hair, before softly stroking through it, trying to keep contact for as long as she could. She kept murmuring into his skin _you’re not alone, you’ve got me, I’m here, I’m alive_ and she wanted to hold him forever, reassure him that he wasn’t going to be alone again, and he clutched her tighter. When their hug ended, he walked over to the bed, holding his arm out in prompt for her to join him. She obliged him, curling up into his body as he covered them both in the blankets on his bed. She felt content for the first time in a long time, and she thought of it as a start to reigniting what she once had with Bellamy.

 

He helped her with the days too overwhelming to face, helping her go through the motions of socialising and going to the med bay to work, him staying by her side or near her in case she needed to retreat back to her room. She felt him looking out for her when she entered a room, inviting her into conversations with easier partners than her mother, trying to build her up gently to face each day. She eventually started sharing a room with him, after one too many nights when she woke up with a crushing feeling in her chest and struggling to breathe, trying desperately to seek him out as her panic increased, or he sought her out, tears staining his cheeks as he moved through the space, seeking her out by the light of the moon. She woke up entwined with him, the two of them clutching each other as if one of them would die without the other. Sometimes she woke up in the night to him clutching her tightly, as if she would drift away if he let go, and she often ended up having to shake him awake gently to reassure him that she wasn’t leaving. He still clung to her anyway, pulling her into a hug that she would always relax into, pressing her face into his neck. He whispered promises of a future for both of them into her neck as she cuddled him close late at night, and she felt herself calm down from wondering what the future would bring, as she knew he wouldn’t let her face the future alone. Not when he was by her side every night. She let herself drift off slowly to sleep, still enveloped in his warmth, feeling loved and wanted for the first time since the world had exploded and left her isolated, facing her demons alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated, but not compulsory. I won't be offended if you don't leave either.
> 
> I hope people have good days/weeks/months/years.


End file.
